Her Forgotten Mate

She is still the most beautiful creature he has ever seen. Her tanned skin is living bronze, barely covered by the softest cotton. There are small, thin straps keeping her dress from falling. If he wanted, he could slip it off her shoulders. High slits on the white cotton shows her thigh and James cannot resist himself, and he reaches for her skin, lightly grasping.

"Will you tell me your name tonight?" James whispers to the woman, his voice almost pleading.

He's asked this question many times now; she'd almost always laughed, and kissed him. He had never gotten an answer yet.

"You know my name," the strange and beautiful woman answered, her voice soft and sweet, like the most beautiful music. He could listen to it forever and not get enough. "Like you know me."

James could not fathom a world where he had met this woman, had known this woman, and then forgotten about her. It was absolutely impossible.

Her eyes were the lightest blue imaginable, like the moon had dripped her color into her daughter's eyes. Her hair the softest white. The strange color made her look ethereal, beautiful. A true daughter of the moon.

She would be a powerful Luna.

Her wolf had the same color fur. Absolutely pure white, like the driven snow. He didn't see her as her wolf very often, though. She loved being in her human form.

He couldn't argue with that.

He reached for her face, his arm winding around her waist, and he pulled her close against him. He could feel her breast against his chest, his hand gripped hard into her waist, and he pulled her as close against him as he could.

"Please remind me," James begged, his face inches from hers, his lips close to her.

She didn't answer. She covered his lips with her own, her hand threading through his hair, and James lost all rational thought.

He lifted her against him, running his hand over her exposed skin, and she lifted a leg around him.

Like she was desperate to have him close to her, too. Like she needed him to breathe, just as he needed her.

She gripped his hair harder, and he felt her teeth against his lips. Sharp, wolf's teeth, biting into his lip. He growled in answer, in warning.

He was the Alpha, she should remember.

She snarled in reply. He was the Alpha, and he ruled all. But she was a Luna, and he did not rule her.

He pushed her against the bark of the nearest tree, the moonlight shining on her, the moon bathing her daughter in her light.

James pulled the rest of their clothes away. How often had they been here? In this place, in this time? He tried to think but couldn't. He tried to warn himself of something.

"Your name," James begged, breathing hard against her neck, inhaling her scent. She peppered kissed all over his face, his neck, grasping his hair, pulling him close to her, but she didn't answer.

"Please," James begged. "Please tell me your name."

She still didn't answer. She ripped his pants off, claw's replacing fingernails. She shredded her own white dress, and James could only think of claiming her.

-

James sat bolt upright, covered in sweat, feeling a pain for a phantom wound. And he groaned in frustration.

His dreams have been getting worse. He'd dreamt about this woman, the same woman, for over three years now. But the past few nights had been the most intense, the most frustrating, and the clearest he'd ever seen her.

If he wasn't sure that it was impossible, he would almost think she was sending him visions of her. That she was placing them together in their dreams when they couldn't be awake.

But to visit in dreams, James shook his head, that was a fairytale. Not even the most powerful of Lunas could do that.

"James," Katrina's voice was a cold shock of reality, pulling him from his thoughts of her. "What's wrong?"

He'd forgotten she'd started sleeping in his bed. It hadn't exactly been mutually agreed on, but he had no reason to say no when she'd all but demanded. They were going to be married soon, after all.

Katrina placed a hand on James' shoulder, and almost immediately, the picture of the beautiful woman in his mind left him.

"I'm fine," James answered, turning away from Katrina. "Just had a nightmare."

He turned back to the pillow, searching for her likeness again, and he could almost smell her on it.

His mate. His true mate. The one whose scent will both drive him insane and calm him. The one that would be like the moon, to him.

The one who he had given up looking for, to fulfil his duty as Alpha, to protect his pack. He had tried looking for her. He'd searched for her for years, but his pack needed a Luna, needed an heir. He had been forced to give up, and put the needs of his pack above his own.

James frowned, shook his head, and buried his face deeper into the pillow. He searched for his dreams again, trying to find her in them.

He was so sure he recognized the woman, but he was also so sure he had never met her before. How would he have met someone like her, and then just walked away from her? How was it possible that he knew her name, but hadn't searched to the ends of the earth to find her?

James clutched the pillow with her phantom scent on it tighter against his chest. She would tell him her name, she would have to. He didn't need anything in the world, the way he needed to know her name.

____________________________

Elizabeth stumbled out of bed, her head swimming with the same visions she'd seen on repeat every night for almost three years running. Her dreams felt like another part of her life, now. She walked through two worlds; one in reality and one in her dreams.

She could see him so clearly, this man that dominated her dream world. His picture in her mind was clearer than any other person, she saw him like he was standing in front of her.

Sometimes he was a person, the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Sometimes he was a wolf, the largest creature she could imagine; he stood taller than her, and she could climb on his back without any problem. Many of her dreams of him were like that, where he was a wolf, and she stayed human. He would carry her, just walking through the forest under the moonlight. And sometimes she would sleep on his back, his fur warm against her skin.

Lunas of Wolf Packs were sometimes gifted with the ability to see the future, to see in their dreams what would be real to their pack. It was a gift, an ability to protect their pack. And some of the most powerful packs depended on their Alpha's strength and their Luna's sight equally. It was a perfect balance that protected the packs for eons.

But Elizabeth wasn't a Luna. She didn't even have a pack of her own, never mind one where she was mated to the Alpha.

Sometimes, Elizabeth remembered, the Lunas could teach their daughters how to see the truth in their dreams. So even if a pack didn't have a Luna with true sight, they would have a daughter of a Luna, someone who had been taught by her mother how to see things no one else could. How to protect their Alphas, and their pack.

Or at least, that was the pack lore she'd heard. So, was it possible? Had Elizabeth's mother passed that gift to her?

Elizabeth shook her head. She didn't even know her mother's name, never mind if her mother had been a Luna.

Still, Elizabeth smiled wistfully, she liked to think of her mother as a Luna. And if no one could tell her anything about her family, no one could object to anything she thought of them.

But how could she be dreaming about someone else? And how could that be a true dream? Elizabeth thought, and the realization sobered her. When she had already found her mate?

She hugged her arms, her window still open, the curtains still pushed aside and the moonlight was falling on her bed. She always left the curtains open, but she reached to close the window; her room had gotten too cold in the night.

She climbed on her bed, letting the moonlight wash over her. Like all wolves, the moonlight calmed her, made her stronger, helped make her thoughts clearer.

She glanced down at herself; she'd fallen asleep in her clothes, and her white dress was now wrinkled and bunched all around her.